ATLANTA (CN) — More than 60 activists who opposed the controversial construction of the planned public training center dubbed “Cop City” are facing racketeering charges in an indictment unveiled Tuesday.
Brought by the Georgia Attorney General’s Office, the 109-page indictment was handed up last week by the same Fulton County grand jury panel that also handed up the RICO indictment against former President Donald Trump and 18 others to local prosecutors.
Prosecutors say Defend the Atlanta Forest is a “criminal enterprise” that seeks to occupy “parts or all 381 forested acres in DeKalb County, Georgia, that is owned by Atlanta Police Foundation and leased by the city of Atlanta for the purpose of preventing the construction of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center.”
“Each individual charged in this indictment knowingly joined the conspiracy in an attempt to prevent the training center from being built. That conspiracy contained a common purpose to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in the State of Georgia, and in other states,” prosecutors say in the indictment.
It goes on to describe Defend the Atlanta Forest as a "self-identified coalition and enterprise of militant anarchists, eco-activists, and community organizers.”
“Based in Atlanta, this anarchist, anti-police, and environmental activism organization coordinates, advertises, and conducts 'direct action' designed to prevent the construction of the Atlanta Police Public Safety Training Center and Shadowbox Studios (previously known as Blackhall Studios) and promote anarchist ideas,” prosecutors say in the indictment.
They say ideas of “collectivism, mutualism/mutual aid, and social solidarity” are promoted by anarchists, such as the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement.
Some critics of the police training facility project say that the movement is not an organized group, and that “Defend the Atlanta Forest” is just a slogan used by people all over and across many different organizations.
The planned training center, which is set to be the nation's largest, has drawn opposition from local residents to activists from around the country and even internationally, who say they want to preserve what is one of the urban area's largest remaining green spaces. They also fear the massive facility they have dubbed "Cop City" will perpetuate greater militarization of the police nationally and exacerbate the over-policing of poor and majority-Black communities.
Sixty-one protesters have been charged with violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act, but most of them are not from the state.
Several are accused of taking "direct action" in Atlanta and other states that has included vandalizing private property, arson, destruction of government property, threatening and throwing rocks and fireworks at law enforcement and utility workers.
Prosecutors point to the day of the high-profile killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers in May 2020, which sparked national protests against police brutality, as the start of what they call a criminal enterprise. They claim that the activists associated with Defend the Atlanta Forest are tied to the same gang members who fatally shot an 8-year old in the back of her mother’s car over three years ago. The incident occurred after the car pulled into the Wendy’s that was burned down after Rayshard Brooks was shot and killed there by police weeks after Floyd’s murder.
The land lease agreement for the training center’s construction between the city and the Atlanta Police Foundation was not announced until April 2021, and it wasn’t until this year that the lease was approved by the Atlanta City Council after over 14 hours of public commentary largely against it.
Many of those indicted face additional and controversial charges of domestic terrorism, an accusation that most of the arrests in the case were based on and a rarely used state statute that carries a weighty sentence between five and 35 years in prison.
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